For many years,
Bay Area artist John Roloff has used the image of a ship as a metaphor for exploration
and discovery. His newest installation called Metafossil (metabolism and
mortality), once again employs the sip image, this time in three large hull
forms that seem to be either sinking into or rising out of the floor. The objects
are made of cement that looks like blackened earth, and each is covered in a
different genus of pine needles. The needles, some long and coarse, others short
and feathery, will eventually disintegrate to leave fossil-like impressions
in the cement. Roloff describes Metafossil as a "eulogy to a former
era and environment."

The element
of transformation, so central to his work, is often found in Roloffs art.
In the past he has created sculptures that acted like kilns and which he fired
in spectacular events. The burned-out remains became permanent works, left in-situ.
Later this year, in a piece created for the San Francisco Arts Commission, Roloff
intends to erect a glass ship hull that will eventually become green from vegetation
growing within the transparent vessel.

In these various
ways, Roloff calls attention to the passage of time and to the elements of earth,
fire and water. Its undoubtedly no accident that his undergraduate degree
was in geology. Yet in addition to scientific interest, Roloff also gives his
works a romantic aura. They celebrate a nature that is both mysterious and beautiful,
while their form suggests adventure, distant lands and the unknown.

In addition
to Metafossil, the gallery also showed some large mixed-medium works
that incorporate photographs. These sometimes appear to be related to Roloffs
fired sculpture projects. Study: Orchid Eclipse, for instance, focuses
on a flower-like form he has used before in kiln sculptures, and Study mit
Grünwald: Falling Knight Furnace/Forest, depicts the chimneys of Roloffs
kilns superimposed on photographs of trees and an image of a Grünwald figure.
Another series, "Iron Sails: Oxidation/Respiration/Entropy," incorporates
photographic images of huge masts and multiple sails that dwarf the cities behind
them and appear to be inexplicably rusting on the spot. These works, created
on curling pieces of canvas tacked to the wall are reminiscent of the fantastic
structures conjured up by Baroque artists like Giuseppe Bibiena.